Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Christopher Marlowe’s friend, the brilliant humorist Thomas Nashe, often got
himself into trouble with authorities. His problems worsened in the summer of
1597, when he was banished from London for co-authoring a “seditious” play. Two
years later, he was banned from publishing altogether. Donna Murphy’s The Mysterious Connection Between Thomas
Nashe, Thomas Dekker, and T. M.: An English Renaissance Deception? presents
substantial linguistic evidence that Nashe reentered London under the name
“Thomas Dekker,” that he permanently assumed the identity after he could no
longer publish under his own name, and then “killed” himself off. We recently
caught up with Donna Murphy to discuss her latest book.

Q: What methodology did you use?

DM: I ran word juxtapositions in the works of Nashe and Dekker through the
searchable Early English Books Online
database. A large pile up of uncommon juxtapositions between works by “both”
authors, plus style similarities, provide reasonable grounds for suspicion.
These similarities occur across such achronologically diverse range of works
as to make the explanations of imitation or parody quite unlikely. I used the
same methodology to locate other works by Dekker/Nashe, including pieces
attributed to T. M., Adam Evesdropper, Jocundary Merry-brains, and Jack Daw.

Q: That all sounds fascinating, but this is a blog about Christopher
Marlowe. Why should Marlovians care about Thomas Nashe?

DM: One reason is that Marlovians believe Marlowe pretended to die yet
continued writing, employing William Shakespeare as his front man. My book claims
that his friend Nashe did so too, with a twist. In Nashe’s case, I believe he
became “Dekker,” who “came to life” in historical records January, 1598.

Q: Didn’t Marlowe and Nashe write Dido,
Queen of Carthage together?

DM: So it says on the play’s title page, but there is no hint of Nashe’s
style in Dido, and I concur with many others who don’t think Nashe co-authored it. Extensive research convinces me,
however, that they often worked together. Although only Marlowe’s name is on
the title page of Doctor Faustus, for
example, for numerous reasons I view Nashe to have been responsible for much of
its prose humor. With the caveat that neither of the two extant versions of Doctor Faustus contains exactly the
original version, and thus could have been revised by others, in the 1604
version (Romany and Lindsey Penguin edition) I would tentatively assign to
Nashe Scenes ii, iv, vi, vii.109-62, viii.50-99, ix (except for ix.36-41), and xi.1-28, 35-85, and
Marlowe the remainder.

Q: What implications does a Marlowe/Nashe partnership have on the
Shakespeare authorship issue?

DM: If you get to know Nashe and his writing style by reading my book, you
will start to wonder whether some of the verbage in Shakespeare that doesn’t
“sound” Marlovian may have been written by Nashe. That’s the topic of my next
book, in which I present linguistic evidence that certain anonymous and Shakespeare works were a collaboration between Marlowe and Nashe (I’ll also discuss
works I view as by Marlowe without Nashe).

Q: Thanks, Donna. By the way, blog readers can read a PDF with the table of contents and first twenty
pages of the book, as well as order it, by visiting Cambridge
Scholars Publishing and entering The
Mysterious Connection under “Title.”

Donna N. Murphy specializes in
researching the authorship of works written during the English Renaissance, and
her most recent article is “‘The Life and Death of Jack Straw’ and George
Peele” in the December 2012 issue of Notes and Queries. She is a co-winner
of the 2010 Calvin and Rose G. Hoffman Prize.

The blog is closed

Ted Hughes, British Poet Laureate (1984-1998)

"The way to really develop as a writer is to make yourself a political outcast, so that you have to live in secret. This is how Marlowe developed into Shakespeare."

Letters of Ted Hughes, ed. Christopher Reid, Faber 2007, p.120

Welcome to MSC: the Web's #1 Blog on Christopher Marlowe

We kicked off in May 2008. We're a blog dedicated to the brilliant Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe. Yes, we believe he could have authored many of the Shakespeare works, and so we offer up hearty servings of delicious intrigue. Thanks for visiting!

THE MARLOWE-AS-SHAKESPEARE CONSPIRACY LAID OUT FOR YOU!

Poets' Corner, London's Westminster Abbey

See the question mark?

THE POWER OF US: KIT Marlowe Up, Earl of Oxford Down

"Meanwhile, the authorship debate shows no signs of fading away. Francis Bacon's star has waned, eclipsed long ago by the Earl of Oxford's. Now Christopher Marlowe's star is on the rise. 'It looks like there's a shelf life to every candidate' of about 75 or 80 years, Shapiro says. 'There's a lot more energy and enthusiasm behind Marlowe.'"

Christopher Marlowe - prodigy, successful playwright/poet, and pretty darn good spy for Queen Elizabeth - lands himself in the kind of hot water that may send him to the gallows. His powerful handlers in espionage, concerned about saving their talented agent, decide to fake his death and send him away. Marlowe, in hiding, continues to write plays and poems. William Shakespeare agrees to be the frontman for these works.

"perfect"

From Amazon: "Rodney Bolt’s book is not an attempt to prove that, rather than dying at 29 in a tavern brawl, Christopher Marlowe staged his own death, fled to Europe, and went on to write the work attributed to Shakespeare. Instead, it takes that as the starting point for a playful and brilliantly written 'fake biography' of Marlowe, which turns out to be a life of the Bard as well." The Spectator praises: "A triumph...perfect." Click the pic to purchase! And click here for our interview with Rodney Bolt!

Buy This!

Wonder who wrote Shakespeare? Mike Rubbo's Much Ado About Something makes a compelling case that it was Marlowe. As seen on PBS Frontline and now on DVD. Elvis Mitchell of the New York Times praises: " . . . an inviting piece of film . . . Much Ado About Something is a film of ideas - well, notions, anyway - that are bound to stimulate discussion, an aspect long missing from documentary." Click the pic to purchase! (or rent it today on Netflix!) Click here for our print interview with Mike Rubbo, click here for our video interview. Click here for an 8-minute preview of the film. Click here for a Tampa Tribune feature about Mike Rubbo.

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